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[LesleyT]

Hi guys.  This is a chance to really do something good.  A school in Ethiopia that is getting XOs has 20-25 blind students.  What can we do to the XO to make it accessible to them?

My thought was a portable Braille display for hardware and the talking word processor program.  I've also thought a lot about an audio-based navigation system that plays different tones, like RJ Cooper's Find the Buttons.

Any ideas?

[GregYohn]

Make sure the students know that the XO runs out of memory! Maybe it can not handle the tasks you need? Remember, it can not run Youtube videos properly.

[OtherMichael]

You might be interested in EmacsSpeak - http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/

However, I haven't heard of anybody runing it yet on the XO, which is unfortunate. The main component -- Emacs -- works just fine. But I don't know if the speech components have been ported to work with the XO speech sub-system. Er, it seems to be working on the EEEPC, though: http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~priestdo/emacspeak/2008/msg00175.html

These pages on the OLPC wiki might point you in some useful directions, but coding is involved:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Speech_synthesis#eSpeak
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Screen_Reader

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Greg, you obviously like the XO -- but why do you complain about it so much? Were you expecting a Unix device with only 256 Megs of RAM and a 433Mhz processor made for classrooms to behave like a 4Gig-Ram 3GigaHz desktop machine with a graphics co-processor? For less than a $200 production cost?!?

I don't think the students need to know that the machine "runs out of memory" -- ANY machine can run out of memory. I think I ran out of memory one -- I was trying to play MP3s in Sonata, copy 2 gigs of data, and run 3 shell windown plus Emacs. Not your typical classroom scenario.

Plus, what's with you and YouTube videos, anyway? You bring that up almost no matter what the topic.

[GregYohn]

Look, today computers teach with video. Not telling users that its memory is gone just is irresponsible! You think frustrated children won't bang the computer when this happens or begin to hate using it. How many years ago did you last see a child that was frustrated?

The XO is coming out again with a new G1G1 and still has the same internal problems not repaired. Buying a computer that can not do the basic tasks is not right. Buying a Yugo was a losing proposition, since it was a old Fiat over 15 years older. It was very fuel inefficient.

My desktop is a 1300 mhz Athalon with 500 Meg memory. The new Intel Atom processor for laptops would better than my machine. An improvement in memory for the XO is not allowed, so warning new users is better than leaving them without proper training!

[mavrothal]

Look, today computers teach with video

To teach with video you need one computer and one projector or a TV and a VCR or a 8/16mm film projector and a white wall, if you are old enough . This has nothing to do with teaching with  mesh-networked computers and collaborative software.
Having said that I should point out that the XO can play video perfectly including YouTube videos (if you download them and play them with MPlayer). Does not play flash video/fast animations in acceptable speeds within the browser, and there is nothing that can be done about it in the sub $200/3-5 watts-TDP  area (yet).

[Gabey8]

If it's blind students that we're talking about, video is very likely to be very low on the priority list. I realize that some people who are legally blind do have residual vision left, maybe even enough to make use of video on a computer or TV screen.

But the class content will have to be accessible to ALL the blind students, and that includes the ones who can't see video well enough to make any viable use of it.

I haven't been brave enough to install emacs on my XO. I did, however, install a not-entirely-complete activity from moocapiean called "Write & Speak", which combines the Speak activity with the ability to type in text. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the capability to save work yet, so it can't be utilized as a word processor yet.

I hope that the people who were working on making the XO accessible see this topic on the XO accessibility mailing list send some posts that update us all on what's currently available for blind students who'd like to use an XO.

[LesleyT]

thanks Gabey.  I haven't had time to play with write and speak and I was wondering how it ran.

I don't understand how the memory problems had to do with making the laptop accessible unless it's a more of a general critique of the laptop itself? 

[GregYohn]

Memory limitations today means future uses are limited. A new G1G1, but the same machine with low memory means that the XO was not corrected when it should have been improved! The minimum memory needs are to see YouTube via the web. Students just have the internet. Flash programs not able to be used, just limits its use.

[Gabey8]

Remember, though, two of the reasons for the limitations of the XO are directly related to keeping the machine affordable. The amount of memory in the machine was decided upon when they were trying to hit the "$100 laptop" price point. They haven't gotten the price down that low yet, but the more hardware they put into the machine, the higher the price will be.

Also, the limitations on processing power also mean that the XO uses less electricity. Since electricity and internet access are extremely expensive in developing countries, limited ability to access Youtube videos and flash games probably isn't going to be considered a drawback, at least not by teachers and parents whose kids are using XOs in their studies.

If the XOs that are deployed in developing countries are being used for education, I don't think that their design will be considered as limited, compared to those of us (including myself) whose use of an XO includes making it into a Road Warrior travel laptop. The school systems that make use of an XO will be designing a curriculum that focuses on what an XO can do to augment education. Those were the tasks that it was designed to perform.

There are times when trying to use an XO to perform as a Road Warrior machine is like trying to make a thoroughbred horse pull a plow, or a Clydesdale run the Kentucky Derby. Yes, those are both horses, just like an XO and (say) an Eee PC are both laptops. But they were designed to perform well in different situations, and asking one to do the other's job sometimes is going to fall flat.

[teapot]

Memory limitations today means future uses are limited. A new G1G1, but the same machine with low memory means that the XO was not corrected when it should have been improved! The minimum memory needs are to see YouTube via the web. Students just have the internet. Flash programs not able to be used, just limits its use.

XO has enough resources to play Youtube videos, just not enough to play them in Flash without skipping. I have posted Ubuntu version of Youtube downloader/player, and it shouldn't be too hard to sugarize those scripts.

Other flash files are hit or miss -- some work just fine, some expect a much faster CPU. Badger Badger Badger (and everything else by Weebl), Loituma girl and other famous flash animations lose framerate but otherwise are OK. Some are posted in fullscreen mode and can be only viewed in resized window like this:

 

(the games themselves, though they run under Wine on regular Linux, rely on graphics acceleration and MIDI sound, and can't run on XO).

[teapot]

Since electricity and internet access are extremely expensive in developing countries

Cost of electricity is trivial, availability is a problem. I encounter exactly the same problem in the middle of a modern American city when laptop is out of battery and I have to write a long email -- a coffee shop on every corner, however I am not expected to hog the table near the power outlet for hours.